Muhammad Amin Bozarslan (1935)

Muhammad Amin Bozarslan (Kurdish: Mehmed Emín Bozarslan,مه‌حمه‌د ئه‌مین بۆزارسلان) was born in 1935 in Diyarbakir, Northern provinces of Kurdistan (Turkey). He moved to Sweden as political asylum seeker in 1978, and he has been living in Uppsala Sweden since then.

Before he came to Sweden as political asylum seeker, he managed to publish 17 books, some in Kurdish and some in Turkish. The most famous and noticeable one of these published books was "ALFABE" which was the first textbook for Kurdish learning that was published in North up to 1968.

The book in an turning point for Latin based alphabet of Kurdish since it invention by Prince J. Bedr Xan in early 1930. This was the first time a textbook targeted illiteracy in North Kurdish among Kurds and encouraged Kurdish education.

However the books was abounded immediately by Turkish court. Emín was arrested and jailed under separatisms charges. He was released after a while but jailed again in another occasion under military regime from spring 1971 to summer of 1974.

He gives his personal account on this aftermath publication of his textbook in an interview in Oct 1993 in Sweden. He says:

I decided as a Kurdish person and as a Kurdish writer to challenge the undemocratic and inhumane policy of the Turkish state and publish this book. I wrote and published it in 1968 in Istanbul. With the help of my friends I distributed it throughout Kurdistan, Istanbul, and Ankara. It was banned immediately. When I went to Diyarbakir, they arrested me.

They took me to trial, and the court asked me, "Why did you write this?" I said, "This language is a live language and people are speaking this language, and as a person in this area, I wanted to help people learn to read and write." But he sent me to prison) and on the paper he signed) he wrote that my crime was to try to divide Turkey. He wrote that I tried to divide Turkey through this book) which is only sixty-four pages. I was in prison for four months. Then they released me) but Alfabe was still banned. The trial continued for six years) until 1974.

This book continues to be banned in Turkey. It was the first Kurdish alphabet book in Latin letters in northern Kurdistan, and it is the only alphabet book in the world that is banned.(2)

During this time he has lived in Sweden, he has published the secound (1980), thried (1988) and the forth (1993) edition of his famouse textbook "ALFABE".

Fig 1: The alphabet, from "ALFABE" published in 1968

Fig 2: Lesson 34 from "ALFABE" published in 1968

It reads:

Freedom is very good.
Our flag waves.
The earth is revived with water.
The leaves catch fire.
The mill grinds grain.
The water in the vessel is cold.(2)